Gordon Brown will today launch a global plan to recruit a million doctors, nurses and midwives in poor countries as an emergency session of the UN in New York seeks to make up lost ground in the effort to reach its millennium development goals.

Despite fears that the deepening global financial crisis will deflect the west from the fight against poverty, the prime minister will call for rich countries to stick by their aid pledges and will announce an international taskforce aimed at mobilising money to tackle maternal mortality.

The prime minister, who will co-chair the taskforce with the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, said last night: "It is unacceptable that one woman dies every minute in childbirth. Almost all these deaths are preventable. We urgently need to mobilise the resources to recruit the nurses, midwives and doctors to stop this tragedy."

After pressure from Britain, the UN agreed to set aside today for a session designed to speed up progress in achieving the eight millennium goals, including universal primary education, a two-thirds decline in infant mortality, and a 50% drop in the numbers of people living below the dollar-a-day poverty line.

The goals are supposed to be achieved by 2015. But on present trends, the UN may fail to meet any of its targets. Least progress has been made in achieving a 75% cut in the number of women dying in pregnancy or childbirth, from the current level of more than 500,000 deaths a year.

The taskforce will report to next year's G8 summit in Italy with proposals on how to raise funds to employ more health workers. These plans will include Brown's international finance facility, a means of front-loading through sales of government bonds, and ideas floated by European governments such as an airline tax and levy on international currency transactions.

Today's meeting will also see Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, pledge extra money to a $3bn (£1.62bn) fund for the eradication of malaria. The UN will say the extra cash should make it possible to prevent any deaths from malaria by 2015.

For education, there will be $3bn pledged to help 10 million children attend school, and Downing Street sources said there was likely to be a commitment from Fifa, the world governing body of football, to make primary school enrolment for sub-Saharan Africa one of the legacies of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Kevin Watkins, director of the global monitoring report at Unesco, said there was an urgent need for education spending. "This is one of those areas where the window of opportunity for success on the millennium goals is closing fast, because universal education by 2015 means getting everyone in school by about 2010 - and schools have to be built and teachers trained.

"There are now 75 million out of school, and our projections show we are unlikely to get much beyond halving this figure by 2015. We also estimate that around 3.6 million new teachers will have to be recruited in sub-Saharan Africa alone."

Brown flew from his successful party conference in Manchester direct to New York for the UN general assembly meeting, which was convened especially to discuss how to put more money into the stalling anti-poverty drive.

The prime minister told the Guardian: "There are 100 million people facing famine, 17 million kids don't go to school, 10 million children die unnecessarily from diseases we could cure and, tragically, half a million women are dying avoidably in childbirth every year."

Despite the global downturn, governments in the west could not afford to cut back on their development aid budgets. "What we are saying," Brown added, "is everyone has a contribution to make to reaching the millennium development goals, but at the moment people will say 'we've got a global economic problem, we should cut aid'. But with global food prices going up, we've got to increase food production in Africa if we are going to solve the problem."

The shadow international development secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said: "We've had enough global jamborees and talking. The clock is ticking and we're miles off track to achieving these goals. Governments around the world must get their act together - a real focus on outputs, not inputs, fewer, better coordinated aid agencies, rigorous independent aid evaluation, and a renewed emphasis on the very poorest countries and the poorest people. What we need to see in New York this week is less hot air and more action."

Brown was due to meet the Chinese premier, Wen Jiabao, last night, and hold a breakfast meeting with fund managers before making a speech on the financial crisis tomorrow, which will stress the need for greater transparency by banks.